Painful Bonds
by Remembering childhood
Summary: Goten and Trunks are found out unconscious and severely beaten. What happened ? Shocks and clashes happen as the events that led to their injuries are slowly revealed. Rated M for gore, coarse language and implied sexual content.


_Disclaimer : I don't own DBZ. _

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><p>The young man was examining two distinct sets of x-rays and MRIs shots. By all standards, occupying such a position in his early twenties was no small deed, but no amount of knowledge he had stocked in his brain during his last eight years of constant study could explain what he was seeing. Adjusting his glasses for the tenth time, he saw, from the corner of his eyes, another person dressed in a white blouse. He sighed in relief as his mentor and superior came into the room.<p>

"At first I thought we might have a rare case of malformation, but to find such similar abnormalities in two distinct patients without any blood relation is near to impossible…" the young doctor's tired eyes were back on the clichés "I mean, look at the organs; the positioning is all wrong, they don't have any _caecal appendix_ or any mark of surgical intervention to justify its absence and just look at the sheer size of their heart, it's huge!"

The older doctor passed his right hand in his grey hair and, moving closer to his pupil, stretched his left. "Give me the clichés." His voice was friendly, but firm and a bit rushed, as if he was looking for the right way to end the conversation before some terrible truth became known.

"I don't get it; it's like they're fucking aliens or something!" the young surgeon was getting agitated and the proximity between him and his former teacher was making him comfortable enough to voice out loud his frustration. Even though this was an unusual outburst for him and he expected some sort of reprimand, the older man's comment left him in a state of shock.

"One of our two _patients_" he insisted on the word "is the son and future heir of the actual head of Capsule Corporation. Do I have to remind you that this whole wing is named after that particular company, that we would not be able to buy half of the material we have without their generous funding, that we would not have the new Magnetic Resonance Tomography machine they build for us and that by insulting the kid you're not helping saving his life! From now on, those two youngsters are my responsability and mine alone!" with that said, he snatched the clichés from his younger collegue's hands and stormed out of the room, back into the intensive care part of the hospital.

The old doctor was damp from sweat. When his young collegue had bluntly said they were aliens, he could have swore his heart stopped beating. Judging by his former student reaction, surely he dind't really suspect the truth, but nevertheless, the kid was promised to a bright future and in his own interest, the less he knew, the better it would be.

Many years ago, as head of West City's General Hospital, he was struggling to keep the public funding from the different levels of governments. It is in this context that Bulma Briefs, CEO of Capsule Corporation, the most powerful and wealthiest company in the world, made him an offer he could not refuse. She offered him millions for his hospital, millions she would trust him to use to the hospital best interests, in exchange for a doctor, himself, for her, her family and friends. When he was about to accept the offer and shake hands with her, she added that of course all the knowledge he would gain from that practice would remain strictly confidential. The look she gave him as he signed the papers tying him to this deal made him wonder if it wasn't his soul he was signing away.

A few months later, he was introduced to Vegeta. From Bulma's husband first short stay at the intensive care unit, his world changed for ever.

He had come to appreciate the little family over the years, in fact, he had grown quite fond of the cunning blue haired woman and, though the alien himself still scared him a bit, his undying curiosity towards such uncommon _specimens_ overwhelmed him. It was not without sadness, that he had to diagnose several potentially life threatening wounds on the two teenagers lying side to side in their beds in that ever intimidating hospital room. Multiple fractures, damaged organs, possible brain traumas… even if he had witnessed the incredible recovery their specie was capable of, this time, he wasn't sure what would happen in the next few hours, when he would stop giving them the drugs that kept them in their chemically induced coma.

Family and friends were gathered tightly around the two injured teenagers' beds. Though they were quite an eclectic group, the same anguish, hurt and fear was present in their eyes. Two of the men were seated, quite unusually, their back bent, looking down at their bloody hands. They did not have the time to change clothes; large stains of crimson blood tainted their shirts. Their old friend and doctor broke the bad news and they were not taken lightly; many tears were shed and fists were balled, ready to fight against whatever enemy had done this…

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><p>Bulma's head was deep into the opened frame of the GR's control panel. Apparently, his "royal pain in the ass-ness" had again managed to fry the electrical circuits. Despite the blue haired beauty's plans to enjoy from the outside, for once, the magnificent weather on this particular afternoon, she had to repair the damage this stupid… a feeling, deep into the pit of her stomach stopped her ramblings about the proud saiyan prince. Worry and sadness overwhelmed her and to confirm her intuition, the aforementioned saiyan came rushing into the room, his face livid and crisped into a mask of pain:<p>

"It's our son." And just like that, he had disappeared. Twenty minutes later, she received a call from the hospital informing her that her only son was in their care.

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><p>Vegeta was silent as a cat and he knew it. He enjoyed stalking his mate, watching her ever gracious movements, the suggestive positions her body would adopt, contorting to reach the appropriate components of the GR machinery. His mind was taken from the always enticing behind of his spouse by a pull in the air: like two bright stars, familiar <em>ki<em> signatures had led up in the sky of his mind. He slowly, and silently, walked out of the room, putting his attention on that place, not so far from where he stood, eyes closed, _listening_ to the fight. The waves of power were increasing at a tremendous rate; both fighters were going to their limits. The exchanges of energy did not occur for long though, as gas catching on fire, the two powers exploded in a bright light and then, everything went black. The fighter's eyes snapped open, his mouth suddenly dry as he stepped back into the gravity room.

"It's our son." That was the only thing he managed to say as he rushed outside of Capsule Corporation's property. He had passed out from exhaustion in the middle of an intense training session more times than he could remember, but he knew it was far more than a training session that awaited him over there… A massive force was coming his way, as he stopped in the air, his old enemy's oldest brat immobilized himself. Their gaze met for a second, then turned towards the ground; a large crater was all that they could discern from the air.

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><p>It is strange how a child confronted at such a tender age to so much pain, violence, loss, cruelty, etc. had grown up into this peaceful teacher, always smiling, his eyes sparkling with intelligence behind his glasses, shy, with this habit of passing his hand through the hair on the back of his head each time he felt uncomfortable. It is strange how his life seemed to balance itself between the world of a fighter, father, husband and scholar. It is strange how fate had bestowed a life of responsibility onto such frail shoulders and how, strengthened by it, the child had grown into the man his family now loved. It is strange how in just one day, all the guilt he once felt for a fallen loved one came back.<p>

The half-saiyan was outside his house, under a shining sun and a cloudless blue sky, watching his young daughter spar, yes, spar with her mother. If he had stopped training except for the occasional torture sessions Vegeta called sparring, his wife had kept her martial ways and their daughter was always more than eager to show off her skills to her mother. Sweat reflected the day's bright light off the lightly tanned skin of his wife. Even if she was slightly outmatched power wise by her six years old daughter, her flawless technique allowed her to maintain an edge. Her strikes were smooth, precise and her years of study of the human, and not so human, body made the connecting blows a lot more efficient than the flurry of kicks and punches aimed at her. The young saiyan laying in the grass repeated the advice his mentor had told him, many years ago:

"Pan, stop trying to see your opponent… close your eyes and _feel_." A quick glance was exchanged between husband and wife as their child closed her eyes.

A few seconds passed before the quarter-saiyan, her eyes shut tight and her face wrinkled in concentration announced ceremoniously: "I'm ready!"

Her opponent closed her eyes too, though just for a moment, taping into a place deep down in herself, like Gohan once had taught her. Her battle cry echoed through the wild as her white aura flashed around her. Leaping into the air, she charged the tiny warrior in front of her. Shifting her weight in mid flight, she focused her ki in her hand as hurled it at the still pyjamas clad warrior. At the last possible moment, Pan's head dodged. For the next minutes, her eyes still closed, the little fighter dodged each blow, always with increasing ease. Fighting at full power was slowly taking a toll on the mother's body and her attempted roundhouse kick was caught by her child, who promptly landed her tiny fist solidly against her midsection. The reaction was instantaneous, as Videl flew a few feet back, pain shot through her entire body as she fought the familiar feeling of suffocation and tried to calm her muscles to let some air in.

Pan's now opened eyes immediately filled with tears as she ran towards Videl.

"Mommy!" as she reached her mother, her cries were stopped by an outstretched hand. Pan reached to take it, only to see a small _ki_ ball fly away form it and hit her square in the forehead.

"Awwww, that was mean, mom!" her wining was interrupted as Videl stated "That's what you get for letting your guard down, sweatie".

Now both on their behind, they could not hold the urge to laugh, mother holding her bruised ribs, daughter rubbing a sore spot above her right eye. Gohan couldn't help but smile at what he thought was "typical Son family time".

When you learn to feel _ki_, at first it is like looking at the stars at night; there are so many of them, you can't see the constellations, then you learn to focus, to be able to select what you want to feel. The _usual_ energy signatures slowly become part of the background and you just don't realize they are there anymore. As Gohan joined the laughter, a feeling in the back of his skull made him stop. Something… _unusual_.

The laughter had died, both were looking at the pale Gohan. "I'll be back…" he mumbled before taking flight in front of the two suddenly very worried members of the Son clan.

Trunks was found, by Vegeta and Gohan, lying in a pool of his own blood, atop of Goten, who was just as badly wounded, in the middle of a burnt field, just outside West City, where they should have been at school. Around them stood the signs of a fierce fight, _ki_ burns on the ground, reshaped landscapes where bodies had collided against the ground, all life annihilated for hundreds of yards around the epicentre of the fight. It had been fast, the seasoned fighters had sensed the two teenagers' _kis_ go through the roof and drastically take a plunge only minutes later. During those minutes, neither the boiling father nor the anguished brother felt any other power near their fallen ones. The tall half-saiyan had only to look into the dark orbs of the older fighter to know that he had come to the same conclusions: either an enemy who could perfectly hide his _ki_ had committed this act of violence upon the two brother-like friends, or they had inflicted this treatment unto each other. Scratching the back of his neck to release some of the tension building there, Gohan wondered which one of those two possibilities scared him the most.

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><p>One by one the members of this small community of fighters had gone home. After all, nothing could be achieved by staring at the two injured teens. Only two remained seated in the room. Even the mothers had left, Bulma having to lead a nearly hysterical Chichi home; she needed to sleep too.<p>

Only the feeble beeping of machines could be heard in the tension filled air of the small hospital room. Dim lighted by the neon flashing in the corridor nearby, the dried blood on the prince's gloves looked as dark as ink. His eyes were still fixed on those stains, as if he could decipher some meaning to all of this in their patterns. In answer to a sigh coming from a corner of the room, he lifted his head. His counterpart's face was distorted with a tired anguish, and even though his wasn't showing any, he knew the other saiyan could feel the turmoil inside him. "What should we do?" asked the figure seated in the corner, removing his glasses to rub his tired eyes.

"We wait" was all that came out of Vegeta's mouth. That question had been asked tens of times by their family and friends. Each time, it had been filled with fear. Fear of the one who had done this, for if both warriors had not lie, they had not shared their suspicions of fratricide attempt by the terrible duo. If an enemy was near, he would strike soon, and as the hours passed, the chances of an enemy strike were becoming less and less plausible.

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><p>Darkness surrounded him. Foot steps. Cries. Murmurs in the dark. He was trying to see, but could not. Suddenly, he was there, by his side… he had never left. His eyes were filled with sorrow; he had been abandoned, betrayed.<p>

Their eyes were locked; he could not take his away from those pools of deep black pain, so different from his… always so cold.

Tears were forming in the teenager's eyes, tears that turned to blood. His eyes were bleeding, his ears too. He was trying to speak, but blood was pouring out of his mouth, only producing gagged sounds… so much blood.

There was blood everywhere. He could not turn his eyes away from his friend, so desperately trying to speak. His hands were holding his belly and trough the clenched fingers crimson liquid was flowing. He was still trying to speak.

As he finally understood what his friend was trying to say, he shook his head, protesting:

"No. No. I didn't kill you. I didn't kill you. GOTEN!" his friend faded away and darkness surrounded him.

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><p><em>AN: Wow... It's been a while since I've been on ff as an author; I hope I'm not too rusty !_

_I have two possible endings outlined for this fic... happy ending or depressing ending ? Which one should I write... still not sure. Review and let me know ;)_


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